How Cocaine is transitioning from a snob-drug to a middle-class snort

If India & the rising disposable incomes and purchasing power of its emerging middle class have made the country a ripe market for everything from luxury cars and yachts, add cocaine to that list.

Almost two months ago, Customs officers attached to the air cargo complex at the international airport in Delhi were forced to take apart a water purifier being sent to Europe. The X-ray machine had indicated that the pipes running through the purifier had been filled with some grainy substance which was showing up faintly on the screen.

When they dismantled the purifier, the officers found that the matter that showed up on the screen was cocaine, packets of which had been lined up neatly inside the machine. The stash weighed almost five kilos and was worth Rs 24 crore. A few days later, another consignment was found inside industrial PVC pipes that were being sent to Canada. This time, cocaine worth Rs 17 crore was found.

According to an officer who was a part of the team that found the consignments, the Foreign Post Office finds a drug parcel almost every day. "At the post office, mostly we find hashish and ketamine. It's usually fitted inside thick parcels. But at the air cargo complex we have found cocaine on several occasions.

The most startling discovery was when we found cocaine in bhujia packets meant to be sent to Europe," says KK Katheria, additional commissioner of Customs. The Customs department has now asked for more advanced varieties of scanners that would help spot drug consignments better, given the sheer number of cases they have to deal with.

Growth & Rising Demand

Even as India was being celebrated as a growing economy in the last decade, international drug cartels found a lucrative market and a strategic transit point in the country. If India and the rising disposable incomes and purchasing power of its emerging middle class have made the country a ripe market for everything from luxury cars and yachts to designer watches and jewellery, add cocaine to that list — from a drug once associated with the ultra-rich socialites and celebrities, the white powder is now rapidly taking FMCG hues.

A fast-moving consumer good it is certainly proving to be; and its sales are being fuelled by the fact that cocaine is one of the few commodities to show a deflationary trend over the past decade. While the powder was sold for Rs 10,000 per gram 10 years ago, it is now available for around Rs 3,000 per gram. Similar to its experience with colas, fries and burgers, the US appears to have had enough of cocaine, too.

According to World Drug Report, in 2012, cocaine use in the US among adults (between 15 and 64) dropped from 3% in 2006 to 2.2% in 2010, the latest year for which data was available. Almost predictably, cocaine too has clambered onto the 'emerging market' wave. Although there's not much information emanating out of India and China on cocaine use, the report does say that "there are indications of increasing or emerging cocaine use in those regions".

Clearly the danger for India is the rampant routing of cocaine via West Africa which, as the World Drug Report notes, may be having a spillover effect on countries in that region. "West African drug cartels that source cocaine from South America have been routing their consignments through India; from here it is being transported by air cargo or through carriers into Europe, which is now the most thriving market for powder."

Powderfingers

It is estimated that at least 50 tonnes of cocaine transits West Africa annually, heading north to European cities, where it is worth almost $2 billion on the streets; a chunk of this travels through India; some of it is inevitably consumed here. A few months ago, Bangalore-based Ranjan (name changed) first encountered the powder at a birthday party.

A friend sidled up to him and asked: "You want to do some Charlie?" Ranjan was drunk and had a "I'll try everything once" attitude to boot. He agreed to snort a thinly sliced line of Charlie, slang for cocaine. The "trip" lasted a couple of hours. "I wouldn't do coke if I wasn't drunk but I don't mind doing it again," says the 29-year-old IT professional with a nonchalance till recently reserved for marijuana.

He has since used cocaine two more times and once paid a friend Rs 3,500 for a gram. "Some of my friends who do it are also in IT, but many have rich daddies and nothing to do in life. It's an ego trip for many of them," adds Ranjan, who smokes marijuana as well.

He says most cocaine users he knows prefer to snort at home rather than at a nightclub because it is cheaper and safer. Alarm bells about India figuring on the cocaine trail first rang loud and clear in 2006 after a huge consignment was found aboard a ship off the Mumbai coast. The seizure of 200 kg of cocaine aboard SL Voyager, a South African ship, was clear evidence that drug cartels had hit Indian shores.

The Metro Culture

Until then, cocaine was considered to be a rich man's vice and most cases of abuse pertained to film stars, celebrities and people belonging to powerful political families. In the last seven years or so, the cocaine trail has left its mark in metros across India among cityslickers.

The new breed of users includes professionals and small-scale businessmen. Given the drastic fall in prices, crack cocaine — the poor man's adulterated version of the high-class drug — has now become popular among the not-so-well-heeled. In 2011, a 22-year-old software professional and the owner of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company were arrested in Gujarat after the police seized about 610 gm of cocaine, worth Rs 30.5 lakh, from them.

In another case in the same year, a Delhi-based businessman was arrested in South Delhi. Two Nigerians, one of whom was a student, who were in contact with the man were arrested. It is feared that if the trend of India being used as a transit point for cocaine shipments continues, at some point, the country will also have to deal with a massive cocaine addiction situation. The number of cocaine seizures in the country, for instance, has also almost doubled between 2009 and 2012 from 42 to around 85.

Middle-class Snort

The arrival of a huge number of carriers into India and their setting up base here has also helped cocaine make the transition from being a glamour drug until around five years ago to a middle-class snort. This essentially means that users of softer — and once by far cheaper — drugs like hashish and marijuana have graduated to coke. One such user is Sam (not his real name). An advertising professional, Sam took to cocaine a year ago after he was introduced to the drug by a friend at a discotheque.

"Cocaine is today as easily available as any of the other 'lesser' drugs such as hashish or marijuana. The glamour quotient has come down. Ten years ago, one could not imagine getting the stuff with such ease," says Sam. The 30-year-old insists that he is not an addict. "I do cocaine once in a while. It still has not reached a stage where I need my fix or something like that. I use cocaine only with an exclusive set of friends."

Earlier, this group used to head to a particular club where they had a regular supplier in one of the waiters. But now the discos have become more careful as the sheer number of people doing cocaine has increased and the police has become more vigilant. Over the years, Sam came in contact with a Nigerian peddler whose number was given by a friend.

"You call him and he asks you to come to a Metro station usually. He comes in an auto and hands the packet and leaves without a word."

When he returned to India two year ago after doing coke in the UK, Sunil K, then 27 and a consultant by profession, was looking forward to come clean. But hardly a week passed when he realised that the coke scene was almost as active in India as it was in London. "I was just passing by South Delhi when I spotted a couple of African people. I sort of asked by habit if they had some stuff and sure enough I struck a deal. This trend of finding peddlers continued to such an extent that at one time I had more than 15 people who could deliver cocaine," says Sunil (not his real name).

That he had built a formidable network of peddlers around Delhi meant that Sunil was soon in demand at some of the top socialite circles in Delhi. Today, however, Sunil is clean after a stint in rehab. He has decided to quit cocaine for life. "I got the shock of my life when I saw a 14-year-old girl snorting at a friend's place."

Not Just A Transit Point

A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report says taking advantage of its porous borders and weak state and security institutions, West Africa is increasingly being used by drug traffickers as a transit point for drugs bound for Europe from Latin America. The drug trade has taken a tremendous toll on Africa. Cocaine trafficking in the sub region is estimated to generate $900 million in profit annually for criminal networks.

And today there are an estimated 1.5 million cocaine abusers in West and Central Africa. After arriving in Africa through notorious gateways such as Guinea-Bissau, cocaine makes its way to Europe. The smugglers, reports suggest, contract local partners to smoothen the way: ministers, diplomats, customs officials, soldiers, policemen, baggage handlers, aircrews, fishermen, even rebels or Saharan tribesmen. Cocaine violence and narco-corruption has spread to all 14 countries in West Africa while Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa have also emerged as trafficking hubs.

Purity & Mass Appeal

A UNODC report also indicates that lowering the purity levels to enhance the appeal of cocaine as a street drug among more people is a strategy adopted by the African cartels. "It appears that the purity of cocaine shipments is declining. Traditionally, there has been around 60% cocaine, but the average purity reported to UNODC declined to 51% in 2008," says the report.

The adulteration of the drug and consequent lowering of prices has thrown up a pick-up-on-the-move cocaine culture in Delhi. Several malls and movie theatres in South Delhi, for instance, are now known to be hotspots for picking up coke. "It would be unfair to say that all peddlers are of African origin. But the truth is most of them are and that is why we tend to treat them with suspicion," says an officer with the narcotics wing of the Delhi Police.

Peddlers On a High

Despite arrests made by the police and Customs and the Narcotics Control Bureau, the carriers keep flying in. "They carry the stuff in the soles of shoes, on the underside of their bags, on their bodies. They try sending the stuff through a carrier and if they find things are tight at the airport, they will courier them out. They don't seem to mind the occasional arrest or seizure; their efforts are relentless in trying to get the stuff out," says the narcotics officer quoted earlier. As the peddlers get more proactive to create demand for cocaine in a fast growing, youth-driven and consumption-fuelled emerging market, Sunil and thousands like him will have to try even harder to stay away from the dreaded stuff.